


The Rebellion of Johnny Lunchbox

by Team_Two_Cats



Series: Suikovember 2020 [10]
Category: Suikoden III, Suikoden Series (Video Games)
Genre: 108 Pigs of Destiny, Gen, Kinda messed up?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27724280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Team_Two_Cats/pseuds/Team_Two_Cats
Summary: Suikovember 2020 Day 26 Prompt: RebellionHaving escaped being made into bacon, Johnny Lunchbox is on a quest to unite the 108 Pigs of Destiny and change the world.
Series: Suikovember 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019115
Kudos: 2





	The Rebellion of Johnny Lunchbox

The world is a truffle and Johnny Lunchbox is set on rooting it out and devouring it. Maybe rolling in the sweet rotten smell of it. Maybe—but he stops himself. Metaphors should be succinct. On point. Powerful. Like a pig.

Bor-bor grunts, and Johnny nods him their direction in deference to their experience in the area. It’s true that Johnny spent most of his years indoor, as something of a pet, something of a lamb to the slaughter. He’d thought, maybe, that his family had cared about him. That especially the one boy with the face so like his own might have cared for him. But then the younger one, the cruel one, had taken him off to Brass Castle to sell as meat in the Zexen markets.

Bor-bor nods to the others, and fifty pigs draw into formation. The start of an army. The start of the 108 Pigs of Destiny. Bor-bor is a gold boar, but there are wild boars and peckles and even other standard pigs that have been liberated from the surrounding farms. All of them drawing together to end the bounties on their heads. The tyranny of cuisine that treats pigs as only sources of deliciousness. And the first step in that is the jewel of the south. The stepping stone into Harmonia, the primary importer of pork and the greatest enemy to pig happiness. Caleria.

The city sweeps out below them, the tall walls virtually impenetrable. From the outside, perhaps. But while the guards are ever vigilant for threats to Harmonian order in the form of human or humanoid agents, it’s easy enough for an elite squad of pigs to slip into a herd and into the city. To rob the trading post for supplies. To craft a deadly powder that when lit…

Porcina should be just about ready. A brilliant inventor, she’s promised that she could take down one of Caleria’s walls without having to build siege weaponry or raise a larger army. Caleria is a defensive city, after all. Meant to keep Harmonian influence over the entire region. Fifty pigs, no matter how valorous, would have no chance to take it with the walls intact. An army of fifty _thousand_ might not be up to that task. But. With the defenses down, the city open and vulnerable…with the rest of the infiltrating force either setting these…bombs in key locations or making sure to otherwise sabotage any response to the attack…that’s something else entirely.

With Caleria down, it will be easy to convince the mantises to rise up. To join the pigs in dominion and freedom. From there…Johnny tells himself not to get too far ahead of himself. It’s not like they’d be able to invade all of Harmonia. But they might be able to hold Caleria. Build a beacon for all pig-kind. And choke the trade of helpless pigs into Harmonian bellies.

A whistle flows up from the city as if on the wind. That would be Marchums, with his wind rune. That’s the signal. Johnny walks in front of his gathered army, the much larger boars in front, the smaller fighters in back. They wear piecemeal armor taken from their raids, designed by Ragehorn back in the castle, the ruined palace where once, if the inscriptions are to be believed, there was a empire of pigs. Before the Sindar. Before things went so wrong.

The metal tips of their tusks gleam in the sunlight. Johnny stands looking down on the city. On the walls, a small group has gathered to look at what those “darn pigs are doing now.” Inside the city, people are going about their day. And at least a thousand pigs are being prepared for either a march into Harmonia or a quick end in the slaughter house. Maybe Johnny’s former family is stilling around the table, enjoying a meal of bacon, pork cutlets, ham. Maybe that boy with the snub nose is missing the pig he once called friend, before he failed to prevent his brother from taking him away to sell in a foreign land.

The wall explodes, and the group of people on it disappear in a wall of smoke and rubble. Johnny spares them a moment’s pity, but only because they didn’t know why. Will never know why. Never acknowledged the war that has been going on for as long as pigs have been considered food. With a rebellious squeal, he charges, and his army charges with him. Smaller explosions are going off inside the city, and Johnny imagines Porcina delighting in the carnage she has authored. The fire and the sudden reek of death. The pens will be opened inside the city walls. All those pigs destined for dinner tables will become a new wave of Johnny’s army. He leaps over the rubble of the wall, eyes scanning for resistance, for enemies.

Some of the guards are reacting, though it’s obvious they have no clue what’s going on. Their heads whip about in panicked confusion. Johnny rushes them, not waiting to check if his army follows. He just feels them behind him, a solid wall of porcine vengeance.

People will remember this. Whatever happens next. In Johnny dreams they take the city and they hold it. They push back every Harmonian attempt to retake the city. Allies stream in from all over the world as the story spreads of the pigs who defied their fates. Who decided they were more than meals. He imagines rebellions in every nation, whole cookbooks needing to be rewritten so that only the vegetarian chefs remain. Alliances with the cows and goats and chickens. Even the fish, if they can be negotiated with. Human interests have ruled the world for too long. There would be a reckoning.

The army sweeps through the city, plated tusks red with blood, flanks scraped and armor dented but hardly a single pig lost. The humans are running, evacuating the city. Those that can. And then Johnny Lunchbox finds himself face to face with his past, with a fleeing family. His family. The older boy with the pushed up nose. His younger and vicious brother. Apathetic and decadent parents. Johnny steps forward as they freeze before him. He sees recognition flare in both of the boys’ eyes.

“Johhny?” the elder asks. “But…you were accidentally sold to the slaughter pens. Dathan said…”

“You little bastard!” the younger brother shouts. “You got away from me in the confusion when Harmonia was going to attack Brass Castle. I could have made some good money on you! Really brought home the bacon. Heh.”

Johnny’s eyes narrow.

“Dathan, you…” the elder brother looks to Johnny.

Dathan pulls out a long knife. “Whatever. This makes this easier. I’ll just slice you now. We might as well have something nice to eat given everything else.”

Johnny snorts, stomps the ground with his forehoof. No way this is ending without blood.

But then Dathan cries out as Oran, the elder brother, strikes, knocks the knife from his hand, and pushes him forward. Dathan stumbles closer to Johnny, now unarmed.

“I wish Johnny was my brother instead of you!” Oran says. “He’s more family than any of you.”

And a part of Johnny warms at those words. At the thought that, maybe, a city of harmony between animals and humans is possible. And then he stomps the ground again, and Dathan’s eyes meet his own. First, there will be blood. Blood mixed into the mortar they’ll use to rebuild this city, better than it was. First, there will be justice. First, there will be the Rebellion of Johnny Lunchbox.

He charges. The earth trembles under his hooves.

**Author's Note:**

> Johnny Lunchbox is my favorite side character in the Suikoden universe and deserves his own story and game. There I said it.


End file.
